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Alexandra Dadivas (she/her/hers), Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

Perfectionism is the belief that it is possible to achieve perfection and the need to be perfect at all times. Academic validation often goes hand in hand with perfection, leading to a very toxic mindset that many students fall into. As one of these students, I can tell you that it is almost impossible to dig yourself out of it. However, I can also tell you my story and how my thinking has changed over time when failure does inevitably occur.

Failure is a part of life. Everyone, including perfectionists, know this, even if it is at the very back of our minds. But people sometimes have very different definitions of failure. Some people think of it as scoring below fifty percent. Others believe that it is not trying at all. For many perfectionists, to fail is to not achieve your goal or meet your standard. The issue is that our standards can be ridiculously high. For me, my goal for myself every single time I had a test at school was to get 95 or higher. When I did reach this goal, I rarely jumped in excitement but was simply satisfied that it reached my expectation. In the times that I did not get my desired mark, it ate away at my person. You could have done better. It isn’t good enough. You aren’t good enough. This was my problem, as it is for many. I allowed my academics to determine my self-worth. My thinking was, “If I’m not a winner, doesn’t that mean that I am a loser?” More often than not, I found myself catastrophizing these “failures” of mine. I began overthinking to the point where I actually convinced myself that this one test mark would cause the rest of my life to go downhill. Sounds ridiculous and overdramatic, right? Well, you’re correct, but in the moment, it always threw me into a state of absolute panic, and the fear in my chest would not go away for days at a time. 

I am terrified to fail – I have been for most of my life. For a while, I thought that this was normal, but as I grew older and encountered more people, I discovered that there are so many different ways that humans respond to defeat. For example, I have met a handful of people who think little to nothing of failure at all. If they do not reach their goal, or if they score below 50% on a test, they simply brush it off and say they will try harder next time or that it just wasn’t meant to be. At first, this confused me. How could they be so carefree and yet so sure of themselves at the same time? After mulling it over for a while (specifically years), it’s led me to conclude that perhaps failure is only as tragic as one believes it to be. Depending on your mindset, failure could be devastating and calamitous, or it could be a small obstacle that requires no second thought. 

Now, I am not saying that by randomly deciding to be an extreme optimist, all your life problems will magically disappear. That would only happen in a perfect world. In an imperfect world like this one, a change like this comes with mandatory time, effort, and determination. I have been working on myself and my reaction to failure for over a year now, and there are still times when I feel I have gotten nowhere with my progress. Where I have high standards and freak out when those standards are not met. However, there are also times when I encounter failure and I’m… okay with it. I’ve learned to pick out my mistakes and use them to get better, instead of allowing them to degrade me. 

One’s failures do not equate to one’s worth as a person. It took me a second to realize that, but once I did, I was able to healthily start my progress to having a proactive mindset. I now am more open to trying new things without the fear of being disappointed in myself, and am on the road to accepting failure just as easily as I would success.

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Hi! My name is Alexandra Dadivas and I’m going into Grade 11 with the goal of being in healthcare sciences. Avid reader of young adult fiction!